Monthly Archives: September 2013

As a salute to the coming of Autumn and Halloween, I would like to share some of my favorite mystery novels and/or authors. In first place, I would have to place Agatha

Christie. I do, however, find it difficult to select just one of her novels because they are all fascinatingly good.

My second choice, even though this author falls more into the horror category, is Edgar Allan Poe. I always liked his stories, especially The Gold Bug and The Cask ofAmontillado. The darkness and depravity of Poe’s writings always caused me to see the mystery of Poe’s mindset.

I am currently enjoying the books of Steven Saylor. I have always been interested in Roman and Greek history. His main character, Gordianus the Finder, is someone who looks beyond his clients’ suspicions and superstitions and solves the crimes through logic and common sense. Saylor also uses the mysteries in his books as a means of educating the reader about Roman history. This is no small feat considering that most of this history was written “by the victors”, as they say. I am in the third of his Sub Roma series and find that I can’t order the rest of the series fast enough.

Well, I hope that this has been enjoyable for you and helpful in any of your future readings of mystery novels.

The question that most authors are asked is usually a variation on, “Who is your main character based on?” When this question is asked, the interviewer is usually trying to see if the author is egotistic enough to say, “Why, me, of course.” They seem to be disappointed when the author doesn’t answer the question the way that they wanted to hear. This is a way for the interviewer to show how egocentric authors tend to be. I, however, can state categorically that Detective James Gladd is not based on me. In fact, the only similarities are minor: My middle name is James and if I had a pet parrot, I would name him/her Sasha.

I really can’t say how Detective Gladd was created. I just started writing the character with a vague sense of who he is as a person. His speech patterns developed as I wrote the book. I suppose that some of the characteristics come from what I imagine a detective would look or be like; I gave him a pet parrot because I like parrots and I thought that a parrot would give him something that other detective characters don’t have in the way of pets. I made him a brunet, 6 foot tall, a divorced man, and an ex-alcoholic since these traits are what we expect detectives to look like. I wanted to give him a slight sense of eccentricity in order to prepare the reader for another character who would heighten the eccentric factor, Alex Dali. When these two characters meet, Gladd is not judgmental of Dali’s love of disguises; thus, we have the contrast between the main character who symbolizes logic and a character who symbolizes open-mindedness.

With this said, I suppose every author approaches the development of their main characters in different ways. Whether the author is successful or not in creating a sympathetic main character is up to the minds of the readers.

In today’s politics, conspiracy theories seem to be the meat that is fed to the masses as

English: “At the Sign of the UNHOLY THREE”, a flier first issued in 1955 to promote hygiene as a communist goal to destroy the U.S.A. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

a means of gaining power. The main proponents of finding conspiracies in anything the current President tries to get done are the Tea Party and extreme right-wing groups. When these types of groups try to explain their objections to the President’s actions, they rely on fear triggers such as “socialist”, “anti-American”, and “anti Second Amendment”. The use of these words are reminiscent of the McCarthy era because they are familiar to older American voters who lived through those times. Some of these phrases also appeal to uneducated voters, such as NRA advocates, i.e. “the government wants to take away your guns.” These people believe that the Second Amendment gives them the right to “bear arms” at all times. This is not true. It was originally meant as a way of assembling militias during a time when our country was just beginning.

In my novel, I made the antagonist a wealthy man who uses the power of religion, in

this case a cult dedicated to a Babylonian goddess, to manipulate other wealthy power brokers into his servants. This cult was based on a current conspiracy theory concerning a group called “The Bohemian Grove”. This is a real group of politicians, industrialists, and bankers who meet in Northern California once a year when “business” is to be forgotten. Some people, however, believe that they are in league to form a One World Government. This is what the cult of Inanna in my book represents. Another favorite of conspiracy theorists is The Georgia Guide Stones. This is a monument that was commissioned by an “unknown” group, supposedly The Rosicrusians, extolling genocide and, again, an One World government.

What, then, can we say about these conspiracies as far as politics are concerned? I

believe them to be nothing more than distractions that politicians use to satisfy the fringe elements of their party in order to stay in power. The real conspiracy is never published in the media; it is kept in the dark so that sane and reasonable people will be taken by surprise when it is finally unveiled. This is what the ending of my novel is trying to convey.